There are five hormones that govern your experience of your menstrual cycle: estrogen, progesterone, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), and testosterone. The quantities of these five hormones change four times throughout your menstrual cycle. This creates four distinct phases within each cycle—follicular, ovulatory, luteal, and menstrual—based on the concentrations of those hormones at each point. Not only do the varying ratios of hormones determine what’s going on inside your body from a reproductive standpoint; they also determine how you feel physically and
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